One of the questions on everyone’s minds at the moment is: what are the health or disease causing possibilities of food? Obesity is a major cause of many illnesses and has mostly replaced other food related illnesses such as rickets and pellagra but how many of us are aware that these illnesses have been seen again in our modern cities?
Perhaps we are still unsurprised by the prevalence of these symptoms seen in undernourished populations of the poorer regions of the world but now it is becoming more common to see them in G.P.s waiting rooms in London, Birmingham and other major cities. A recent study by Sustain , a food campaigning organisation, and the Mental Health Foundation, also linked the growing incidence of mental ill-health to our changing diet.
Poor nutrition effects every cell of our bodies, our emotions and, as previously stated, our mental health and thereby effects every part of our society. Studies of cultures around the world that still eat traditional diets full of wild game and wild picked foods have very good health and few of the diseases seen in people eating ‘western’ diets. Why is this the case?
Sarah Garton
Transition City Lancaster has also been encouraging people to make their own preserves and even swap them on swap stalls, usually seen at our events. On the program this month we talk more about keeping food but this time just in our larders.
Do you know how to stock a Healthy Home Larder or even what food falls into which food category? Can you plan meals and shopping? We have some tips from four TCL members who all know a little about food.
We Transitioners are also concerned with the world’s depleted resources that are being wasted by trucking food around the world unnecessarily; oil is a precious commodity and should, as our supplies run low, be used carefully. We also use oil to make fertilisers and pesticides but organic growing, brought up to date with newly discovered and rediscovered techniques, provides plentiful food and keeps our soils healthy for future generations.
All of this and much more is discussed in Feeding the family, an hour long radio program found at the link below. Enjoy listening.